US oil and gas supermajor Chevron is the major LNG producer in WA with its Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects and a share in the North West Shelf project.
Peter Coleman's challenges: an ageing plant, high cost gas, partner churn and global forces making the LNG game tougher than anyone envisaged a few years ago.
Chevron has been denied a two-year free pass on Gorgon greenhouse gas emissions by the WA Government that could cost it more than $80 million, and there may be a future bill for Wheatstone as well.
WA LNG producers Woodside and Chevron, beset by low prices and COVID-19 work restrictions, are maintaining dividends to shareholders and gas to customers as they shed workers, with unions describing Woodside’s actions as “brutal, cold, and unnecessary.”
Chevron boss Mike Wirth is not distracted by renewables as he pushes for more and lower cost production and looks to move gas through Woodside's Scarborough project.
Chevron is preparing to shed about 400 employees from its WA business, just months after approving a new construction project and backing an LNG jobs initiative.
Chevron has paid the Australian Taxation Office $US654 million ($866 million) under a partial settlement of its dispute with the tax office over intercompany loans and slashed the interest rate it charged its Australian subsidiary.
The Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects are now enjoying cash margins of more than $US30 a barrel at a $US50 price and production from the $111 billion mega-projects is expected to increase.
Chevron's Wheatstone LNG project may need to offset more than one million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year if restrictions that were removed by Colin Barnett in 2013 are reinstated.
Chevron chief executive John Watson says his company should have done more engineering and planning before it sanctioned the Gorgon LNG project in 2009.
Too much hot air around the LNG trains on Barrow Island has caused Chevron to flag a production cut at Gorgon as the US giant tackles problems onshore and offshore.
